Google AR/VR software lead quits, heavily criticizes company on way out

dantheclamman@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 306 points –
Google XR software lead quits, heavily criticizes company on way out
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I'm willing to argue it's the sole reason Stadia failed. I never heard anything bad about the service from people who actually used it. It just never got enough users because Google can't be trusted anymore. Sundar has destroyed the brand.

I think they could have established trust in it if they kept at it for a little longer, but they dismanteld their first party studio some 8 months after it was started and downsized the Stadia team pretty quickly.

All bad signs if you’re thinking about trying a new service. I bought one game on there for $5 to try it out. Worked fine. I was going to see if their paid version with higher quality was any good the same week they decided to kill it and removed the option to upgrade. Don’t forget they also killed YouTube gaming and their VR thing the same year they launched stadia and were so committed to gaming…

IMO, I think it got memed to death. I never understood how import marketing was until I as a Stadia user saw how much bad PR it had with people who'd never tried it (and were unwilling because of what they'd heard from other non-users).

There's a reason Tim Cook didn't wear Apple Vision during the presentation lol.

That’s fair, but years ago when the first iPad was announced, the hashtag “iTampon” was trending on Twitter for days mocking the device. Now, a decade later, your doctor walks in the room with one and can AirDrop you test results.

I don’t think Stadia’s sole problem was in the bad PR, but more in that it came at the end of the last gaming generation’s cycle and then you’ve got the Google Graveyard to counter. If Stadia had come out even a few years earlier than it did, or allowed you a way to play games already purchased elsewhere, gamers would not have gawked at the idea of repurchasing all their games all over again for a product that Google would likely abandon.

I used to watch the news about Stadia from the time it was announced hoping for the best and for some momentum, but it never materialized and then Google pulled the plug when it should have amped everything up to 11 during the pandemic.

Yeah you're right, there's a good case that multiple factors lead to Stadia's failure (not to mention interest rate hikes).